How Far Will Steve Bannon Go to Take Down JD Vance?
On Thursday, the Daily Mail reported that Steve Bannon, the brains behind the MAGA movement, was strongly considering a 2028 presidential run—news that would surely aggravate the current internal rift between Trump’s radical base and the more traditional neocons at the top of the GOP.
Sources also told the Mail that Bannon’s primary motivation for considering a run was his long-standing feud with Vice President JD Vance. “Love him … but Vance is not tough enough to run in 2028,” one source quoted Bannon as saying.
These rumors came just days after Trump soft-endorsed a Vance–Marco Rubio ticket in 2028.
“Well, I think most likely. In all fairness, he’s the vice president, and I think Marco is also somebody that maybe would get together with JD in some form,” he said. “I also think we have incredible people, some of the people on the stage right here. So it’s too early, obviously, to talk about it, but certainly he’s doing a great job. And he would be probably favored at this point.”
Bannon responded to the speculation surrounding his chances the next day in The National Pulse with just two troubling words: “Trump 2028.” That’s not exactly a denial—if Trump doesn’t run again, which he is constitutionally prohibited from doing, then Bannon might throw his factory-distressed Barbour jacket in the ring.
This isn’t the first time Bannon has alluded to or called outright for Trump to eschew a basic constitutional principle and seize power for another four years.
“My guy in 2028 is Donald J. Trump—a guy like this comes around once in a century, OK, and we got to get everything out of President Trump we can get,” Bannon told Politico back in March. “I went to fucking prison to back this president, and to back this movement in a low-security fucking prison,” Bannon said. “Here are the things I care about: I care about my country and this movement, and I care about President Trump.”
It’s clear that Bannon has issues with Vance, who initially opposed Trump and only got in line when it was overwhelmingly obvious that Trumpism was the future of the GOP. Still, Bannon has always wielded the most power behind the scenes—which means he’s likely looking for a puppet to control more than he is contemplating a star turn of his own.